


Come A Caroling

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Established Relationship, Fluff, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 14:56:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17123504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Nyx asks Noct to write him a carol. Just this once, for charity. As if Noctis could say no. [Set in myCrescendouniverse]





	Come A Caroling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LogicDive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicDive/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Kai! I know a kinda put a bow on this AU earlier this year, but I know it's your favorite and wanted to give you something you'd like for the holidays. I hope you have a good one! :)

“Write me a carol!”

“What?” Noctis laughed, half in amusement and half in horror when he realized Nyx was being serious. “Nyx. I don’t know the first thing about songwriting.”

“Sure you do! You’re a writer by trade, lyrics should be second hat for you. Think of it like poetry.”

Nyx was already beating the heel of his palm against the hollow part of his guitar, like he was cueing Noctis in to start ad-libbing lyrics to the rhythm. Noctis shook his head and steadied his hand over Nyx’s wrist to stop him before he scared the neighbors into thinking they bought bongo drums.

“ _You’re_ the songwriter,” Noctis insisted. “Why do you think _I’m_ going to be able to do _your_ job any better than you can?”

“Because you’re brilliant,” Nyx said, donning that stupid grin which made Noctis feel all warm and tingly and vulnerable to his every request. “And you can bring me to tears with a single sentence.”

“I don’t think that’s the reaction you want to get from a carol.”

“You know what I mean. C’mon, please? You write the lyrics, I’ll write the music to put them to. We’ll collaborate like real professionals, it’ll be fun!”

Noctis gave him a skeptical look, but he recognized the desperate grasping of a fellow artist running on creative fumes. Twas the season for muses being prone to work allergies – Noct knew his own muses had been in hibernation since the first snowfall, little over a week ago. Nevertheless, Noctis sighed, little by little relenting to Nyx’s wide, pleading stare.

“Why even bother with an original song?” he asked. “There’s hundreds of classic carols to choose from.”

“Yeah, but don’t you get tired of hearing the same old thing every year? Sure, there’s a reason they’re classics, but there’s no reason we can’t spice things up with something new. Really get the people’s attention this year. It’s for a good cause,” Nyx needled, entreating with Noct’s more altruistic nature.

Kingsglaive played home base to volunteer carolers every holiday season to raise gil for the homeless. All of the musically inclined were welcome to meet at the bar, and then be assigned to a group of carolers bound for a different district. One didn’t have to be a professional pianist for hire to come along and spread some holiday cheer. They just had to bring their voice and a bag of canned goods to pay their way. If monetary donations didn’t add up by the end of the night, at least they still had some food to give to the less fortunate.

Nyx was nothing if not determined to introduce new sound to old traditions, crossing the divide with the most powerful tools he had in his arsenal: stubbornness and a guitar. Noctis glanced at the clock on the bedside table, weighing the weariness of his own mental reserves. An hour, at max, and _maybe_ he could squeeze out a few lines. He could at least do a chorus line for them to draw from.

_Just set the clock and write. Don’t think too much about it, just pick some festive words, put them into a stanza, and go from there. Whatever you have by the end of the hour is the best you’re going to get._

“Fine,” Noctis finally conceded, immediately kissed by Nyx in gratitude.

It was so hard to say no to him when he asked for so little. And what did it say about Noctis if he refused to write a charity carol for the holidays?

What he ended up writing wasn’t very much. Just a few lines looped over some adapted chords stitched together from more popular carols. It was rudimentary at worst, spirited enough to get a chuckle at best. Whatever Noctis felt about it, Nyx was happy by the end of the hour. And that was all that really mattered.

The night of the event was christened with another snowfall, thick, fluffy flakes stamping onto the sidewalks beneath Noct’s boots on his way to Kingsglaive. He could hear hand-held sleigh bells and tambourines shivering through the night from around the corner, and the familiar chords of Nyx tuning his guitar and testing the strings while Crowe organized volunteers into groups and Libertus passed donated bags of food into storage for future delivery.

Nyx spotted him down the sidewalk immediately, eyes lighting up like the strings wound around the lampposts. He crooked an arm around his neck and kissed him hello when Noct trotted up to those gathered, claiming him for the group he was assigned.

“Been practicing your new song,” Nyx murmured to him while Crowe barked yuletide instructions to the assemblage. “I think it’s gonna make the kids happy.”

Anything with sugarplum moogles and red-nosed chocobos was bound to be a child pleaser. The lyrics were a bit derivative, hastily plastered over some much more well-constructed notes by Nyx, but he thought it was good enough for some bubbly holiday giggles. And maybe if the kids were entertained, their parents would be more inclined to drop one extra gil in the carolers’ hats.

“It’s _our_ song, not mine,” Noctis corrected him, shoving his hands in the pockets of Nyx’s coat. “You did the hard part.”

“If you stumble over lyrics all day like I do, you’d know you had the hard part.”

“Let’s just agree that we worked mutually hard on a holiday challenge for the sake of the greater good.”

“Deal.”

They broke off with their merry band of red hatted and plaid scarfed volunteers, Nyx drawing Noctis to the head of the crowd, despite his objections. He was the one with the guitar in the group so, he would be providing the background music for the singing, and he wanted Noctis to be right next to him. If not because he was proud to show him off, if because he wanted to make sure he wasn’t just moving his lips in time with the lyrics.

Noctis glared at him for that, because how dare he accuse him of something so cheerless… But he’d be lying if he didn’t wish he was at the back of the troupe where no one would notice if he was singing or not.

They camped out on street corners in the delicate drifts of snow, singing for passing shoppers sneaking into stores after the midday crowds, singing for families on their way to festive plazas decorated for winter events. They ran through the park to entertain skaters on the lake, stopped at the front doors of family members for some of the volunteers because they told them if they antagonized them enough, they’d throw money at them just to get them to leave. But it was all said in jest. Each household was happy to open their doors to the songs, kids clapping along to Noct’s silly rhyme about chocobos and magic moogles when they cycled it through the roster.

Nyx was in his element throughout the night, crooked smile soft under the snowflakes as he mouthed along to lyrics, keeping his own time on the guitar. His eyes were as silver-blue as the icicles dripping from the pine trees, almost translucent under the frosty lampposts as they passed underneath. Breath clouds held the beat of each carol as his cold lips worked, the tips of his ears red with the chill and the thrill of every donation they earned.

Sometimes, Noctis forgot to sing, not because he was shy, but because he was so struck by how sweet Nyx looked, kneeling down to serenade kids in coats and earmuffs, and encouraging them to dance along to the songs. Sometimes, Noctis forgot that they were surrounded by well-meaning strangers, and he thought it was just the two of them, strolling like holiday ghosts through the streets of the snowy city.

“Keeping warm, baby blues?” Nyx asked later, at one of their designated rest stops for hot cider and popcorn. He was rubbing his hands to keep them from locking up, gloves fingerless to better manipulate the guitar strings.

“Are you?” Noctis retorted, setting his cider to the side to hold Nyx’s cold fingertips in his palms, squeezing and pressing wherever he could to keep them warm.

“Well, now I am.”

“This the part where you tell me I’m your summertime in the middle of winter, or something just as cheesy?”

“Has my charm lost its allure on you? You sound exasperated by me, I’m wounded, Noct, truly.”

Noctis laughed, the idea that he could ever be sick of Nyx more hilarious to him than any line he ever hooked him with. “No, not at all. C’mon, lay it on me.”

“You’re the yule log to my hearth. The flame to my wick. The campfire to my chestnuts.”

Noctis wrinkled his nose at that one and shook his head, voiding that particular analogy. Nyx snorted in agreement and bundled Noctis into a hug while they sipped cider and waited for the order to head out on their next route.

“Thanks for coming out with us this year. I think having the endorsement of the mayor’s son is having an effect,” Nyx teased.

“What, you mean my ‘brilliant’ lyric-writing isn’t what’s drawing in all the donations?”

“Of course it is! That just goes without saying.”

“Always have the answer to everything.”

“You’re the answer to my everything.”

Noctis whined and buried his cold nose against Nyx’s neck to hide his face from his embarrassing compliments. But truly, nothing was better than this. Than warming the snow from his clothes in Nyx’s embrace, than putting his voice to Nyx’s music to fill the streets of his city with joy, if only for one winter’s eve. He was happy to write just for that.


End file.
